Phantom of The Opera set build

When the call went out to parents and volunteers in U-46 School District’s Streamwood High School in Streamwood Illinois, that the musical in 2011 was going to be Phantom of The Opera I got worried. Since my Stepdaughter got the female lead part, I knew I was planning to help, but the show is a monster when it comes to sets! In our first volunteer meeting the director and stage manager showed us a scale model of the theater with scale sets and set pieces! Holy Cow! Now I got REALLY WORRIED! How many of these parents would actually understand the basics of construction and have decent tools? When I voiced my thoughts, I was told we would have plenty of students to help us as well. That was a relief, not. So the sign-up sheets for set build dates circulated and we started to chat as we put our names on the dates we could help. What had I gotten myself in to?
On the first day I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the parents showed up with at least Ryobi drill-drivers and spare batteries! I had brought my 18vONE 5 piece kit, all my spare batteries and chargers plus a spare drill. As we talked among ourselves we discovered that even the 2 out of work carpenters who were there had Ryobi 18vONE kits. We all saw the same performance and value of these tools, and as it turns out, we all also worked well together. We had more in common than our power tools, we had similar high standards and work ethics too! I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story, we were the first High School to put this show on, so we patterned off Broadway’s sets.